Chapter 29

Yvette quickly scanned her surroundings before answering his question.

A few nobles had already recognized her and were murmuring among themselves.

“Follow me this way.”

Yvette hurried out of the party hall.

“Going far is a pain. Why don’t we just talk here?”

Kerbel stopped following her and came to a halt in the corridor.

Yvette, who had stopped as well, furrowed her brow.

“……There are a lot of eyes here too, you know?”

“That’s easy to fix.”

Kerbel smiled brightly and snapped his fingers. Then, as if sound had been blocked, everything around them went quiet.

“Now no one can see us or eavesdrop on our conversation. Is this enough?”

“……Was that just now magic?”

When Yvette asked as if in wonder, Kerbel gave a small shrug.

His relaxed face seemed to say this was nothing at all.

“So, why did you come looking for me?”

Kerbel leaned against a pillar and looked at Yvette.

As he got straight to the point, Yvette unconsciously swallowed dryly.

Now that he was right in front of her, she felt strangely nervous.

He had the face of a sickly boy, but Kerbel was the strongest mage in this world.

Perhaps that was why. Even just standing there, he gave off a strange sense of pressure.

‘So the mastermind really is the mastermind.’

If she carelessly ran her mouth in front of him, she might turn to dust without a mouse or bird knowing.

But even so, she had to say what needed to be said.

That was why she had come all this way.

‘Don’t be scared. Either way, if I don’t speak up, I’ll die all the same.’

After taking a deep breath, Yvette opened her mouth.

“As you said, I’m from the Blanche family. I’m also someone who’s been through hell because of the curse you placed on my family.”

“Hmm. That curse is still going? I thought they’d all died out long ago. What a pity.”

Kerbel muttered in a tone that sounded not the least bit pitying.

Despite his boyish face, the words coming out of his mouth were utterly ruthless.

“Hearing that, I can roughly guess why you came. You want the curse lifted, don’t you?”

“You catch on quickly.”

Kerbel let out a soft laugh as Yvette answered without hesitation.

His bright red eyes sank darkly.

“But what a shame. I have no intention of lifting your curse.”

Kerbel spoke with the most shameless tone imaginable.

Not a shred of guilt or remorse could be found on his face.

‘……What kind of madman is this?’

Yvette stared at him in disbelief.

In the original work, Kerbel was also depicted as a character with not a single ounce of empathy.

He only acted “like a human being” in front of Liliana.

Having lived nearly several hundred years solely for Liliana, it was no wonder.

‘Patience. I have to be patient.’

Yvette forced down her anger and continued calmly.

“……Why can’t you lift it? There must be a reason.”

“If I lift the curse on you, I might end up with a troublesome problem.”

Kerbel answered with a small yawn.

Unlike Yvette, whose insides were burning, he looked utterly at ease.

“So what exactly is this troublesome problem?”

When Yvette pressed further, Kerbel waved his hand as if too bothered to answer.

“Just think of it as having bad luck with your ancestors. That’s how life is, isn’t it?”

With that, Kerbel straightened his posture.

His interest seemed to have waned, and boredom was evident on his face.

“I thought you’d come to me with some grand problem. It was nothing after all.”

At those words, Yvette finally could not hold back and shouted.

“Nothing?! A person is about to die because of you right now!”

“Why would you die? You’ve already met your destined partner.”

Kerbel did not seem to care at all whether she was angry or not.

His gaze, indifferent to the point of being dry, turned toward Yvette’s nape.

The tattoo was hidden by her clothes and invisible, but Kerbel seemed to already know of its existence.

Yvette instinctively covered her nape and glared at Kerbel.

“……Are you telling me to spend my whole life relying on that person?”

“Why? Do you hate that?”

Kerbel blinked. His expression asked what the problem was.

Yvette could not bring herself to answer and rubbed her face dry.

She felt as though she could have a better conversation with a beast.

“Look here, Mr. Petoras. Don’t you think this is too much?”

“I’m not sure. What exactly is too much?”

“I’m cursed, yes, but what crime did the person who has to have physical contact for the rest of their life with someone they don’t even like commit?”

“Who knows. You don’t seem to dislike it as much as you think.”

Kerbel muttered meaningfully.

But Yvette, busy trying to salvage the situation before her, did not notice.

“Enough, just lift the curse already. Saying you won’t lift it means you know how to lift it, doesn’t it?”

Yvette glared at Kerbel and spoke.

She intended to persuade him somehow and get the curse lifted.

But Kerbel was far more unreasonable than she had imagined.

“No matter what you say, my answer will be the same. So stop wasting your effort and think about how to coax your destined partner. Without that person, your life ends too.”

Kerbel answered coldly without even blinking. Then he turned his back on Yvette without a trace of regret.

“It seems our business is done, so I’ll be going.”

“What? We’re not finished talking—where are you going!”

Kerbel smiled brightly at the bewildered Yvette.

“I have to go find the person I like.”

With those words, Kerbel snapped his fingers. In an instant, the noise that had been blocked returned to normal.

At the same time, Kerbel vanished in the blink of an eye.

Seeing that not even a trace remained, he must have used magic to teleport.

At the unexpected turn of events, Yvette collapsed to the floor as if her strength had left her.

She had thought that just meeting Kerbel would naturally lead to the curse being lifted.

But this was a situation her calculations had not accounted for.

Yvette looked at the empty corridor and lightly bit her lip before letting go.

‘……What do I do now?’

Luhen Academy was not a place one could visit at any time.

At the very least, without the other person’s consent, one could not even request a meeting.

In other words, it meant there would be no chance to meet Kerbel other than today.

Yvette closed her eyes and took a long breath.

She had to find a way somehow.

‘Think. How can I get Kerbel to lift my curse?’

How many minutes did she agonize like that?

A name suddenly came to Yvette’s mind.

‘Right. There’s Liliana!’

Liliana was practically Kerbel’s entire world.

Couldn’t she, of all people, change Kerbel’s mind?

A ray of hope rose on Yvette’s previously dark face.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the same time.

Noel, having barely shaken off the nobles approaching him, set out to find Yvette.

‘I’m sure I told her to stay nearby.’

Perhaps she had moved elsewhere, for Yvette was nowhere to be seen in the party hall.

‘Really, she doesn’t let me take my eyes off her for a single moment.’

Noel let out a soft laugh and rolled up his sleeve. Then a bracelet identical to the one he had given Yvette was revealed.

As he walked toward the corridor, the pendant on the bracelet glowed softly.

Noel slowly followed the light emitted by the bracelet.

The communication stone he had gifted Yvette was a magical tool capable of not only communication but also location tracking.

The method of tracking the location was simple.

The closer the communication stones were to each other, the stronger the pendant’s light became.

It was a way of finding the other person using that principle.

Thanks to that, Noel was able to find where Yvette was without much effort.

‘……I never thought the day would come when I’d use this.’

Noel thought as he walked.

Since meeting Yvette, he kept doing things unlike himself.

Where she was and what she was doing.

What she was thinking, and who she was talking to.

Questions he had never once considered before occasionally occupied his mind.

Back when he first proposed the engagement to Yvette, it had not been like this.

But as time passed, he became increasingly conscious of her.

‘Anyway, she’s gone quite far.’

Even though he had come quite a distance from the party hall, Yvette was still nowhere in sight.

Noel let out a short hollow laugh and swept back his hair.

‘Judging by how strong the light has gotten, she should be near here.’

That was when it happened.

A large old tree suddenly came into Noel’s view as he looked around.

It was a tree that had stood in the same spot since his days at the academy.

“……So that’s still there.”

As if drawn by something, Noel walked toward it.

Looking at the towering old tree that seemed to cover the sky, old memories surfaced anew.

* * *

It was about seven years ago that Noel Averon became the ‘Duke of Averon.’

His father, the previous Duke of Averon, was a debauched man with no sense of fidelity.

Because of that, Noel had as many as five half-siblings.

As the youngest, Noel’s only lot in life was to survive, pushed aside by his siblings.

So to escape the suffocating air of the ducal estate, he entered the academy as if fleeing.

Even there, Noel lived quietly as a mouse.

Just bearing the name Averon drew people’s attention.

Then one day, as he lived quietly, as if present yet absent—

Noel learned through the newspaper that his entire family had been found dead.

The one accused of this tragedy was the duke’s fourth wife, Petrinne Averon.

She was his mother.

[…Did you hear the news? The Duke of Averon’s wife was taken away this time.]

[I heard. It seems His Majesty the Emperor is taking this matter seriously as well.]

[Do you really think she killed them all by herself? It’s not as if there were only one or two people there.]

[Who knows. Maybe she had help from someone.]

With the tragedy of the Averon ducal family as the turning point, Noel’s life changed drastically.